Nature of and in a great city!

From our walks around Detroit, this is our blog of animals, insects, trees, plants and other things from nature that we see. Most of the photos are ones that S.or I have taken in our neighborhood or during our travels in the city.

February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Yes, it's a House Finch. We've had a good turnout of House Finches at our feeder this winter. Along with Cardinals, it is the only red bird that is showing up though. We used to live two blocks away from our current home and before that just five blocks away (that's two moves to those who are counting). At those houses, we used to see Redpolls and Purple Finches and only saw a House Finch at our feeders a couple times. Now, House Finches are pretty common out there, but not the others. Will keep putting out the seed though and maybe sometime soon.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Spring is still a month away! Ok, maybe a little less. Still seems early to see a Robin. And, at a feeder? This one seems to be one of the few that did not fly south for the Winter. A little research tells us that not all American Robins fly south. Some do winter-over. But, what is it doing at a feeder. Robins usually eat insects, worms, fruits and not a whole lot else. Food has probably been difficult to come by this Winter with the amount of snow that we have seen and this one might be hungry. We did not have mealworms or fruit at the feeder, so it seems he was either finding some safflower seeds or in the hopes of finding something edible, was following the lead of the other birds that were active eating dropped seeds. Lets hope he makes it through to the other side of Winter.